Books on Walker Percy
A Comprehensive and Categorized Listing of Books on Walker Percy with Book Descriptions
View: Books by Walker Percy Books on Walker Percy
Directory
Select a directory button to peruse the available books on Walker Percy as organized by genre. Each book provides a link to its catalog description. If you know of a book that is missing, please contact the Project.
Note: this page's bibliography and book descriptions are being expanded as additional descriptions are added over time. One-page annotations for some books are available in the Annotations Directory. These annotations were prepared by graduate students through one of the Project's collaborative educational programs. The first critical book dedicated to Percy was published in 1972.
Critical Books
- (2023) Walker Percy and the Crisis of Meaning: Communication in the Ruins, Justin N. Bonanno
- (2019) Fyodor Dostoevsky, Walker Percy, and the Age of Suicide, John F. Desmond
- (2018) Walker Percy, Philosopher, Leslie Marsh, ed.
- (2018) Reading Walker Percy's Novels, Jessica Hooten Wilson
- (2017) Walker Percy, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and the Search for Influence, Jessica Hooten Wilson
- (2017) Walker Percy and the Politics of the Wayfarer, Brian A. Smith
- (2016) Walker Percy's The Moviegoer at Fifty: New Takes on an Iconic American Novel, Jennifer Levasseur, Mary M. McCay, eds.
- (2016) The Literary Relationships of Robert Coles and Walker Percy: An American Search for Meaning, Edward Francisco
- (2015) Studies in American Fiction: Walker Percy's Fiction Theme and Structure, Satya Deo Sharma
- (2014) Sartre's Existential Freedom: Walker Percy, Edward Hopper, and Mike Nichols Works of Art 1940-1970, Zhenping Wang
- (2013) A Political Companion to Walker Percy (Political Companions to Great American Authors), Peter Augustine Lawler, Brian A. Smith, eds.
- (2011) Wingless Chickens, Bayou Catholics, and Pilgrim Wayfarers: Constructions of Audience and Tone in O'Connor, Gautreaux, and Percy, L. Lamar Nisly
- (2010) Novelists of the American South (Walker Percy and Shelby Foote), Gaikwad Shahaji
by Walker Percy
Symbol and Existence: A Study in Meaning: Explorations of Human Nature
(Mercer University Press, 2019)
- (2009) With Walker Percy at the Tupperware Party: in Company with Flannery O'Connor, T.S. Eliot, and Others, Marion Montgomery
- (2007) Peculiar Crossroads: Flannery O'Connor, Walker Percy, and Catholic Vision in Postwar Southern Fiction, Farrell O'Gorman
- (2007) Flannery O'Connor, Walker Percy, and the Aesthetic of Revelation,
John D. Sykes, Jr. - (2007) Desire, Violence & Divinity in Modern Southern Fiction: Katherine Anne Porter, Flannery O'Connor, Cormac McCarthy, Walker Percy, Gary M. Ciuba
- (2004) Eudora Welty and Walker Percy: The Concept of Home in Their Lives and Literature, Marion Montgomery
- (2004) Walker Percy's Search for Community, John F. Desmond
- (2003) The Life You Save May Be Your Own: An American Pilgrimage, Paul Elie
- (2002) Impossible to Say: Representing Religious Mystery in Fiction by Malamud, Percy, Ozick, and O'Connor, L. Lamar Nisly
- (2000) Walker Percy's Voices, Michael Kobre
- (2000) The Southern Inheritors of Don Quixote, Montserrat Ginés
- (2000) Walker Percy's Sacramental Landscapes: The Search in the Desert, Allen Pridgen
(South Atlantic Review,
- (1999) The Last Physician: Essays on Walker Percy, Literature and the Moral Life of Medicine, Carl Elliot and John Lantos, Eds.
- (1999) Percyscapes: The Fugue State in Twentieth-Century Southern Fiction, Robert W. Rudnicki
- (1997) At the Crossroads: Ethical and Religious Themes in the Writings of Walker Percy, John F. Desmond
- (1996) Walker Percy: Prophetic, Existentialist, Catholic Storyteller, Robert Lauder
- (1996) Still Following Percy, Lewis A. Lawson
- (1996) Walker Percy, The Last Catholic Novelist, Kieran Quinlan
- (1995) Autobiography in Walker Percy: Repetition, Recovery, and Redemption, Edward Dupuy
- (1995) Walker Percy's Feminine Characters, Lewis A. Lawson and Elzbieta H. Oleksy, Editors
- (1994) The Signs of Christianity in the Work of Walker Percy, Ann Mace Futrell
- (1992) Plight in Common: Hawthorne and Percy, Elzbieta Oleksy
- (1992) The Myth of the Fall and Walker Percy's Last Gentleman, Bernadette Prochaska
- (1991) Walker Percy: Books of Revelations, Gary M. Ciuba
- (1991) Walker Percy: Novelist and Philosopher [Foreword by Walker Percy], Jan Norby Gretlund and Karl-Heinz Westarp, eds.
- (1990) The Gift of the Other: Gabriel Marcel's Concept of Intersubjectivity in Walker Percy's Novels, Mary Deems Howland
- (1989) Critical Essays on Walker Percy, J. Donald Crowley and Sue Mitchell Crowley
- (1988) The Comedy of Redemption: Christian Faith and Comic Vision in Four American Novelists (O'Connor, Percy, Updike, DeVries), Ralph C. Wood
- (1988) Following Percy: Essays on Walker Percy's Work, Lewis A. Lawson
- (1988) Understanding Walker Percy, Linda Whitney Hobson
- (1987) Walker Percy and the Postmodern World, Mary K. Sweeny
- (1987) The Fiction of Walker Percy, John Edward Hardy
- (1986) In Search of Self, Life, Death, and Walker Percy, L. Jerome Taylor
- (1986) The Writer as Shaman: The Pilgrimages of Conrad Aiken and Walker Percy, Ted Ray Spivey
- (1986) Walker Percy: Modern Critical Views, Harold Bloom
- (1986) Walker Percy, A Southern Wayfarer, William Rodney Allen
- (1985) Walker Percy and the Old Modern Age: Reflections on Language, Argument, and the Telling of Stories, Patricia Lewis Poteat
- (1985) Three Catholic Writers of the Modern South (Allen Tate, Caroline Gordon, Walker Percy), Robert H. Brinkmeyer
- (1984) Perceptions of Time and Place: A Critique of Five Novels by Walker Percy, Philip H. Vaughan
- (1983) Walker Percy (Twayne Publishers), Jac Tharpe
- (1983) Walker Percy's Heroes: A Kierkegaardian Analysis, L. Jerome Taylor
- (1983) Prophecy in American Fiction: A Study of the Novels of Walker Percy, George Madathiparampil
- (1983) The Language of Grace: Flannery O'Connor, Walker Percy, and Iris Murdoch, Peter S. Hawkins
- (1980) Walker Percy, Art and Ethics (UP of MS), Jac Tharpe, ed.
- (1979) The Art of Walker Percy: Stratagems for Being, Panthea Broughton, ed.
- (1978) Walker Percy, An American Search, Robert Coles
- (1972) The Sovereign Wayfarer: Walker Percy's Diagnosis of the Malaise, Martin Luschei
Critical Books (Foreign)
- (1990) Fortezza, Daniela. Verso Omega: Walker Percy e Il Mistero Infinito. Roma: Bulzoni
- (1989) Oleksy, Elzbieta. Theistic Existentialism in American Letters-Hawthorne and Percy (Series: Acta Universitatis Wratislaviensis). Lodz: Wydawn, Uniwersytetu Lodzkiego
- (1987) Santraud, J.M. Deux Regards sur l'Amerique: Dashiell Hammett et Walker Percy. Textes reunis par J.M. Santraud. Paris: Presses de l'Universite de Paris-Sorbonne
- (1983) Madathiparampil, George. Prophecy in American Fiction: A Study of the Novels of Walker Percy. Changanacherry: Sandesanilayam Press (Book Description)
Journals (Percy Issues, 1980-2022)
-
Journals issues from 1980-2022 that are dedicated to Percy are available in the Secondary Resources on Percy section of the Project Bibliographies.
Bibliographies (Books)*
Select a bibliography book title for a brief annotation of its contents.
- (1988) Walker Percy: A Comprehensive Descriptive Bibliography. Hobson, Linda Whitney. New Orleans: Faust, 1988. [Introduction by Walker Percy.]
- (1986) Walker Percy, A Bibliography, 1930-1984: Based on the Collection of the Compiler, including Books, Pamphlets, Magazines, Journals, Newspapers, etc. Wright, Stuart T. Westport, CT: Meckler, 1986. 69 pp. in description of Percy's published writings to 1984.
- (1983) Andrew Lytle, Walker Percy, Peter Taylor: A Reference Guide. Kramer, Victor A. et al. Boston: G.K. Hall, pp. 61-186. Includes writings about Percy 1961-1980, annotated.
*Bibliographies In Journals: Bibliographies have also appeared in several journals, including Bulletin of Bibliography (1973), Southern Quarterly (1980), Delta (Montpellier, France) (1981), and Southern Quarterly (1996). Bibliographies of major works associated with Walker Percy are found in printable format in the Project Bibliographies section. Researchers may also wish to consult archives collections descriptions related to Walker Percy located in the Project's Walker Percy Papers Collections section.
Biographies & Percy Family Histories
Primary Biographies
- (1997) Walker Percy: A Life, Patrick H. Samway, S.J.
- (1992) Pilgrim in the Ruins: A Life of Walker Percy, Jay Tolson
- (1978) Walker Percy, An American Search, Robert Coles
Percy Family Histories
- (1994) The House of Percy: Honor, Melancholy, and Imagination in a Southern Family, Bertram Wyatt-Brown
- (1994) The Literary Percys: Family History, Gender, and the Southern Imagination, Bertram Wyatt-Brown
- (1983) The Percys of Mississippi: Politics and Literature in the New South, Lewis Baker
- (1973, originally 1941) Lanterns on the Levee: Recollections of a Planter's Son, William Alexander Percy
Remembrances & Memorials
- (2006) Walker Percy Remembered: A Portrait in the Words of Those Who Knew Him, David Horace Harwell
- (1991) Memorial Tributes to Walker Percy. New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1991.*
*Memorial Tributes to Walker Percy is a booklet that includes tributes read at a public memorial service held in New York City at St. Ignatius Church in 1990. Memorials include ones by Shelby Foote, Robert Giroux, Stanley Kauffman, Patrick Samway, S.J., Mary Lee Settle, Wilfrid Sheed, and Eudora Welty. (Note: though this soft-bound collection is rare, the tributes by Shelby Foote and Eudora Welty are re-published with permission in the Project's Memorials section.)
Documentaries
- (2011, DVD) Walker Percy: A Documentary Film, Win Riley Films
- (2000, DVD) Tell About The South: Southern Literature, James Agee Film Project
- (1999, Online) Southern Literature Documentary, 1963-1999, James Agee Film Project
Related Books to Walker Percy
- (2021) Walker Percy Loves You and Has a Wonderful Plan for Your Life, Douglas Brown
- (2005) Ken and Thelma: The Story of A Confederacy of Dunces, Joel L. Fletcher
- (2003) Shelby Foote: A Writer's Life, C. Stuart Chapman
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